La présence virtuelle avant la naissance et après la mort

Mémoire, identité et espace de vie dans Marx et la poupée de Maryam Madjidi et Le Fils de Michel Rostain

Abstract

The narrative voices in Maryam Madjidi’s autofiction Marx et la poupée (2017) and Michel Rostain’s biofiction Le Fils (2011) share a special feature, namely their virtual presence in the narrated worlds: one, unborn, speaks in her mother’s womb, while the other, already dead, comes from beyond. In this way, both take a “different” look at past trauma, individual and collective memory, the (re‑)con­struction of identity, and human life in general. The article examines the spatial reciprocity between presence and virtuality in the two works, each of which won the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, not least because of their narrative voice.